TNI Bureau: The government has taken a stern action against Telecom majors by implementing stricter radiation emission norms from today for mobile towers in India.

As per the new norm, the telcos will reduce emission to one-tenth of the present limits. They will be levied penalties of Rs 5 lakh per tower in case of their failure to maintain the prescribed standard.

Telecoms minister Kapil Sibal has said that the telcos need to take action immediately at any given point of time if a particular tower needs an immediate alteration, or else they will have to face the penalty.

Requirement of the new norm also includes the Mobile phone companies to provide self-certification of fulfillment with the new norms and register with the telecom enforcement resource and monitoring (Term) cells.

The ‘Term’ cells would conduct random audits and in case of complaints the telecoms department can impose a fine of Rs 5 lakh per tower per telco if rules are contravened.

The guideline of the new norm prohibits installing of base station antennas in lanes narrower than 5 meters and totally restricts roof top towers with multiple antennas.

Further, a certain distance must be maintained from a building depending on the number of antennas they want to put. Like if a building has 12 antennas it must be 75 meters away from a tower and if a tower has only two antennas, it can be placed at a minimum distance of 35 meters from a building.